Solve Wi-Fi connection problems with your laptop

Do you have network or internet connection problems with your laptop computer? Does the internet work, but then after a while it stops? I had this problem and the solution could be quite simple. You just need to change a setting.

I was having an intermittent internet problem and after booting up the computer, the internet would be fine and websites could be accessed with a browser.

I spend a lot of time writing articles like this and the internet is not used for q while. When I came to use it again, the browser could not get a web page and reported that there was no connection. A dodgy internet connection was the prime suspect, but maybe it wasn’t.

After several days, maybe a week, I realised that the problem was worse when the laptop was running on battery power. That is suspicious and it indicated that it was something to do with the battery, perhaps the power settings.

It turned out that the power saving mode was switching off the Wi-Fi and disabling this seems to have cured the dodgy internet/network connection. Here’s how to do it.

Click the battery icon at the right side of the taskbar and click the More power options link.

There are several different plans and it doesn’t matter which one is selected, just click Change plan settings next to whichever one you use.

On the next screen, click Change advanced power settings and a small window appears.

Scroll down the list of settings to Wireless Adapter Settings and expand it. Expand Power Saving Mode and there are separate settings for On Batter and Plugged In. This is so that you can have maximum power saving mode when running on battery power and maximum performance when plugged in to the mains power.

If it is set to maximum power saving, try setting it to maximum performance for both battery and plugged in settings. This worked for my laptop and since then I have had no problems.

It could be a coincidence and a dodgy internet connection could have cleared up all by itself, but I don’t think so. The strange thing is that this is only a recent problem and I wasn’t happening before. Perhaps a Windows update has changed something.

Whatever the cause, the Wi-Fi problem seems to have gone away. I haven’t really noticed any detrimental effect on the battery life. Compared to the processor and graphics, Wi-Fi probably doesn’t use a lot of power.